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IX The Classic Words of God Concerning How to Attain Salvation and Perfection

IX The Classic Words of God Concerning How to Attain Salvation and Perfection

IX The Classic Words of God Concerning How to Attain Salvation and Perfection

61. If you have believed in God for many years, yet never obeyed Him or accepted all of His words, and instead asked God to submit to you and follow your notions, then you are the most rebellious of all, and you are an unbeliever. How is one such as this able to obey the work and words of God that do not conform to the notions of man? The most disobedient person is one that intentionally defies and resists God. He is the enemy of God and is an antichrist. Such a person always retains hostility against the new work of God, shows no intent to submit, and has never gladly obeyed or humbled himself. He exalts himself before others and never submits to another. Before God, he considers himself the most proficient in preaching the word and most skillful in working on others. He never discards the treasures already in his possession, but treats them as family heirlooms to be worshiped, to be preached to others, and used to lecture those fools who adore him. There are indeed some such people in the church. It can be said that they are “indomitable heroes,” generation after generation sojourning in the house of God. They think preaching the word (doctrine) to be their highest duty. One year after another and one generation after the other, they perform their holy and sacred duty. None dare touch them and none dare openly reproach them. They became “king” in the house of God, acting tyrannically through the ages. These demons seek to join hands and together destroy My work; how can I allow these living devils to exist before Me?

from “The Truly Obedient Shall Surely Be Gained by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

62. God and man cannot be spoken of as equals. His substance and His work are most unfathomable and incomprehensible to man. If God does not personally do His work and speak His words in the world of man, then man would never be able to understand the will of God, and so, even those who have devoted their entire life to God would be incapable of gaining His approval. Without God’s work, no matter how good man’s doing, it will count for nothing, for the thoughts of God shall always be higher than the thoughts of man, and the wisdom of God is unfathomable to man. And so I say that those who “clearly see” God and His work are ineffectual, they are all arrogant and ignorant. Man should not define the work of God; moreover, man cannot define the work of God. In the eyes of God, man is smaller than an ant, so how can man fathom God’s work? Those who are constantly saying, “God does not work in this or that way” or “God is like this or that”—are they not all arrogant? We should all know that people, who are of the flesh, have all been corrupted by Satan. It is their nature to oppose God, and they are not on a parity with God, much less can they offer counsel for the work of God. How God guides man is the work of God Himself. Man should submit, and should not hold such and such a view, for man is but dust. Since we try to seek God, we should not superimpose our conceptions on the work of God for God’s consideration, least of all should we employ our corrupt disposition to deliberately try to oppose the work of God. Would that not make us antichrists? How could such people say that they believe in God? Since we believe that there is a God, and since we wish to satisfy Him and to see Him, we should seek the way of truth, and should look for a way to be compatible with God. We should not stand in stiff-necked opposition to God; what good could come of such actions?

from Preface to The Word Appears in the Flesh

63. Foolish and ignorant men often regard the normal humanity of Christ as a flaw. No matter how He expresses and reveals the being of His divinity, man is unable to acknowledge that He is Christ. And the more that Christ demonstrates His obedience and humility, the more lightly foolish men regard Christ. There are even those who adopt toward Him an attitude of exclusion and contempt, yet place those “great men” of lofty images upon the table to be worshiped. Man’s resistance to and disobedience of God come from the fact that the substance of the incarnate God submits to the will of God, as well as from the normal humanity of Christ; herein lies the source of man’s resistance to and disobedience of God. If Christ had neither the guise of His humanity nor sought the will of God the Father from the perspective of a created being, but was instead possessed of a super humanity, then there likely would be no disobedience in any man. The reason man is always willing to believe in an invisible God in heaven is because God in heaven has no humanity and He does not have a single quality of a created being. So man always regards Him with the greatest esteem, but holds an attitude of contempt toward Christ.

from “The Substance of Christ Is Obedience to the Will of the Heavenly Father” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

64. The biggest problem with man is that he only loves things that he cannot see or touch, things that are supremely mysterious and wondrous, and that are unimaginable by man and unattainable by mere mortals. The more unrealistic these things, the more they are analyzed by man, who even pursues them heedless of all else, and deludes himself that he is able to gain them. The more unrealistic they are, the more closely man scrutinizes and analyzes them, even going so far as to make up his own exhaustive ideas about them. On the contrary, the more realistic things are, the more dismissive man is of them; he simply looks down his nose at them, and is even contemptuous of them. Is this not precisely your attitude toward the realistic work I do today? The more realistic such things are, the more prejudiced you are against them. You don’t spare any time to examine them, but simply ignore them; you look down your nose at these realistic, straightforward requirements, and even harbor numerous conceptions about this God who is most real, and are simply incapable of accepting His reality and normality. In this way, do you not believe amid vagueness? You have an unshakable belief in the vague God of times past, and no interest in the real God of today. Is this not because the God of yesterday and the God of today are from two different eras? Is it not also because the God of yesterday is the exalted God of heaven, whereas the God of today is a tiny man on earth? Is it not, moreover, because the God worshiped by man is the one produced by his conceptions, whereas the God of today is a real flesh produced on earth? When all is said and done, is it not because the God of today is too real that man does not pursue Him? For what the God of today asks of man is precisely that which man is most unwilling to do, and which makes him feel ashamed. Is this not making things difficult for man? Does this not lay bare his scars? In this way, many of those who do not pursue reality become the enemies of God incarnate, become antichrists. Is this not an obvious fact?

from “Only Those Who Know God and His Work Can Satisfy God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

65. Do not think that you are a natural-born genius, just a tiny bit short of heaven and towering over the earth. You are not cleverer than other people, and it can even be said that you are cutely sillier than any other sensible person on earth because you see yourself too highly; you have never had any sense of inferiority. It seems that you see everything I do as clearly as crystal. The truth is that you are not remotely a sensible person. This is because you have no idea what I am going to do, and you know even less of what I am currently doing. That’s why I say that you simply cannot compare to a veteran farmer who has no cognizance of human life yet relies on blessings from Heaven for farming. You are so dismissive regarding your own life and you do not know your own reputation, and you have even less self-knowledge. You are too “high and mighty”!

from “Aren’t Those Who Do Not Learn and Know Nothing but Beasts?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

66. For example, if you have arrogance and conceit inside you, it will be impossible to not defy God, but instead you would be made to defy Him. You wouldn’t do it on purpose; you would do it under the domination of your arrogant and conceited nature. Your arrogance and conceit would make you look down on God, it would make you see God as being of no account, it would make you exalt yourself, it would make you constantly put yourself on display and finally it would make you sit in God’s place and bear witness for yourself. In the end you would make your own ideas, your own thinking and your own conceptions into truths to be worshiped. See how much evil is done by people under the dominance of their arrogant and conceited nature!

from “Only by Seeking the Truth Can You Obtain Changes in Your Disposition” in Records of Christ’s Talks

67. Once a man has status, he will often find it difficult to control his mood, and so he will enjoy seizing upon instances to express his dissatisfaction and vent his emotions; he will often flare up into rage for no apparent reason, so as to reveal his ability and let others know that his status and identity are different from those of ordinary people. Of course, corrupt people without any status will also frequently lose control. Their anger is frequently caused by damage to their individual benefits. In order to protect their own status and dignity, corrupt mankind will frequently vent their emotions and reveal their arrogant nature. Man will flare up in anger and vent his emotions in order to defend the existence of sin, and these actions are the ways with which man expresses his dissatisfaction. These actions brim with defilement; they brim with schemes and intrigues; they brim with man’s corruption and evil; more than that, they brim with man’s wild ambitions and desires. When justice contests wickedness, man will not flare up into anger to defend the existence of justice; contrarily, when the forces of justice are threatened, persecuted and attacked, man’s attitude is one of overlooking, evading or flinching. However, when facing the forces of evil, man’s attitude is one of catering, and of bowing and scraping. Therefore, man’s venting is an escape for evil forces, an expression of the rampant and unstoppable evil conduct of the fleshly man.

from “God Himself, the Unique II” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh

68. Every one of you has ascended to the highest heights of the multitudes; you have ascended to be the ancestors of the multitudes. You are extremely arbitrary, and you are running amok among all of the maggots seeking a peaceful place, attempting to devour the maggots that are smaller than you. You are malicious and sinister in your hearts, surpassing those ghosts that have sunk to the bottom of the sea. You live in the bottom of the dung, disturbing the maggots from top to bottom so that they have no peace, fighting with each other for a while and then calming down. You do not know your own status, yet you still battle with each other in the dung. What can you gain from that struggle? If you truly had a heart of reverence for Me, how could you fight with each other behind My back? No matter how high your status is, aren’t you still a stinking little worm in the dung? Will you be able to grow wings and become a dove in the sky?

from “When Falling Leaves Return to Their Roots You Will Regret All the Evil You Have Done” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

69. People do not require much of themselves, but they require much of others. They must be patient and forbearing of them, cherish them, provide for them, smile at them, be accommodating to them, and yield to them. They must take care of them in many ways, and they cannot be strict with them, provoke them, or do anything that they would not like. Man’s reason is so lacking! People are not clear on where they should stand, what they should do, what they should accomplish, what viewpoints they should have, what position they should stand in to serve God, and what location is suitable for them to place themselves in. People with a little bit of position think very highly of themselves, and people without position also think quite highly of themselves. People never understand themselves. If you can continue your faith, never complain, and fulfill your duties as usual regardless of what is said to you, how strictly you are treated and how you are ignored, then you will be a mature and experienced person, and you will truly have some stature and normal reason. You won’t require things of God, you won’t have extravagant desires, and you won’t request things of others or of God based on the things you are fond of. This shows you possess the likeness of a person to an extent. Currently you have too many requirements and they are too excessive. Your many intentions prove that you are not standing in the right position, your position is too high, and you have viewed yourself as overly honorable as if you are not much lower than God. Therefore you are difficult to deal with, and it is precisely the nature of Satan.

from “People Who Always Have Requirements for God Are the Least Reasonable” in Records of Christ’s Talks

70. When you’re together with Christ, perhaps you can serve Him three meals a day, perhaps serve Him tea, attend to His life’s needs, seemingly treating Christ as God. Whenever something happens, people’s viewpoints are always contrary to God’s. They always fail to understand God’s viewpoint, fail to accept it. Though people might get along with God on the surface, this doesn’t mean that they are compatible with Him. As soon as something happens, the truth of man’s disobedience emerges, confirming the hostility that exists between man and God. This hostility is not God opposing man; it’s not God wanting to be hostile to man, and it’s not God placing man in opposition and treating man as such. Rather, it’s a case of this oppositional essence toward God lurking in man’s subjective will, and in man’s subconscious mind. Since man regards all that which comes from God as the object of his research, his response toward that which comes from God and that which involves God is, above all, to guess, and to doubt, and then to quickly adopt an attitude that conflicts with God, and oppose God. After that, man will take these passive moods and dispute God or contest God, even to the point where he’ll doubt whether this kind of God is worth him following. Despite the fact that man’s rationality tells him he shouldn’t proceed like this, he will still choose to do so in spite of himself, such that he will proceed without hesitation to the very end. … What does this suggest? It suggests that man and God are opposed! It’s not that God regards man as an enemy, but that the very essence of man itself is hostile toward God.

from “How to Know God’s Disposition and the Result of His Work” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh

71. You regard Christ as an immortal, a sage, but none regard Christ as a mortal with divine substance. Therefore, many of those who yearn day and night to see God are actually enemies of God and incompatible with God. Is this not a wrong on the part of man? Even now you still think that your belief and loyalty are such that you deserve to see the countenance of Christ, but I exhort you to equip yourselves with more tangible things! For in the past, present, and future, many of those who come in contact with Christ have failed; they all play the role of the Pharisees. What is the reason for your failure? It is precisely because in your notions there is a lofty, admirable God. But the truth is not as man wishes. Not only is Christ not lofty, but He is particularly small; not only is He a man but an ordinary man; not only can He not ascend to heaven, neither can He move freely on earth. And so people treat Him as an ordinary man; they do as they please when they are with Him, and speak careless words to Him, all the while still waiting for the coming of the “true Christ.” You regard the Christ that has already come as an ordinary man and His word as that of an ordinary man. Therefore, you have not received anything from Christ and have instead completely exposed your ugliness to the light.

from “Those Incompatible With Christ Are Surely Opponents of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

72. Prior to contact with Christ, you may believe that your disposition has been entirely transformed, you may believe that you are a loyal follower of Christ, and you may believe that you are most worthy to receive the blessings of Christ. For you have traveled many roads, done much work, and brought forth much fruit, so you must be a person who receives the crown in the end. Yet there is one truth that you do not know: The corrupt disposition and rebellion and resistance of man are exposed when he sees Christ, and the rebellion and resistance exposed on such occasion are more absolute and complete than on any other. It is because Christ is the Son of man and possesses normal humanity that man neither honors nor respects Him. It is because God lives in the flesh that the rebellion of man is brought to light thoroughly and vividly. So I say that the coming of Christ has unearthed all the rebellion of mankind and has thrown the nature of mankind into sharp relief. This is called “luring a tiger down the mountain” and “luring a wolf out of the cave.”

from “Those Incompatible With Christ Are Surely Opponents of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

73. When you truly live with Christ, your self-rightness and self-importance will be slowly exposed by your words and actions, and so shall your excessive desires and disobedience and discontent be spontaneously revealed. Finally, your arrogance will become ever greater, and when you become as incompatible with Christ as water is with fire, then your nature will be entirely exposed. At that time, your notions can no longer be veiled. Your complaints, too, will spontaneously be expressed, and your vile humanity will be entirely exposed. However, you continue to disavow your own rebellion. And you believe that a Christ such as this is not easy to accept and He is overly stringent with man, and you would wholly submit if He were a different, kinder Christ. You believe that there is a cause for your rebellion, that you only rebel against Him when Christ has driven you to a certain point. Never have you realized that you do not regard Christ as God, nor do you have the intention to obey Him. Rather, you stubbornly insist on Christ doing work according to your mind, and upon any work that has not been done so, you believe that He is not God but a man. Are there not many among you who have contended with Him in this way? Whom is it that you believe in? And how do you seek?

from “Those Incompatible With Christ Are Surely Opponents of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

74. Are you truly able to treat Him as God every moment of every day? Will you truly have the reality of obedience to God? You worship the lofty God within your hearts as Jehovah but regard the visible Christ as a man. Your sense is too inferior and your humanity too lowly! You are unable to forever regard Christ as God; rather, you simply pull Him over and worship Him as God when it strikes your fancy. This is why I say you are not believers of God, but accomplices to those who fight against Christ. Even men who show kindness to others are repaid, yet Christ, who does such work among you, is not loved or repaid by man, nor does He receive man’s obedience. Is this not a most saddening thing?

from “Those Incompatible With Christ Are Surely Opponents of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

75. When it comes to faith, many may think that they follow God because they have faith, otherwise they would not bear such suffering. Then I ask you this: Why is it that you never revere God though you believe in His existence? Why, then, do you have no fear of God in your heart if you believe in His existence? You accept that Christ is the incarnation of God, so why do you hold such contempt and act so irreverently toward Him? Why do you openly judge Him? Why do you always watch His movements? Why do you not submit to His arrangements? Why do you not act in accordance with His word? Why do you extort and rob Him of His offerings? Why do you speak in the place of Christ? Why do you judge whether or not His work and His word are correct? Why do you dare blaspheme Him behind His back? Are these and others what constitute your faith?

from “Are You a True Believer of God?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

76. Every part of your speech and behavior reveals the elements of unbelief in Christ that you carry within. Your motives and goals for what you do are pervaded by unbelief; even the look in your eyes and the breath you exhale are tainted with such elements. In other words, each of you, during every minute of the day, carry with you elements of unbelief. This means that, at every moment, you are in danger of betraying Christ, for the blood that runs through your body is infused with unbelief in the incarnate God. Therefore, I say that the footprints you leave upon the path of belief in God are not substantial. Your journey along the path of belief in God is not well grounded, and you are instead simply going through the motions. You are always skeptical of the word of Christ and cannot immediately put it into practice. This is the reason that you do not have faith in Christ, and always having notions about Him is another reason that you do not believe in Christ. Always retaining skepticism about the work of Christ, letting the word of Christ fall on deaf ears, having an opinion on whatever work is done by Christ and not being able to properly understand it, having difficulty putting down notions no matter the explanation you receive, and so on; these are all elements of unbelief mixed in your hearts.

from “Are You a True Believer of God?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

77. Outwardly, you all appear to be very obedient to this Christ on earth, yet in substance you neither have faith in Him nor love Him. What I mean is that the one you truly have faith in is that vague God in your feelings, and the one you truly love is the God you yearn for night and day, yet have never seen in person. As for this Christ, your faith is merely a fraction, and your love for Him is nothing.

from “How to Know the God on Earth” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

78. Presently, your faith is only thirty percent of your heart, while seventy percent is possessed by doubt. Any deed done and any sentence spoken by Christ can cause you to form notions and opinions about Him. These notions and these opinions stem from your complete unbelief in Him. You admire and fear only the unseen God in heaven and have no regard for the living Christ on earth. Is this not also your unbelief? You yearn only for the God who did work in the past but do not face up to the Christ of today. These are always the “faith” mingled in your hearts that does not believe in the Christ of today. I do not underestimate you, for there is too much unbelief within you, too much of you that is impure and must be dissected. These impurities are a sign that you have no faith at all; they are a mark of your renouncement of Christ and brand you as a betrayer of Christ. They are a veil covering your knowledge of Christ, a barrier to your being gained by Christ, an obstacle preventing your being compatible with Christ, and a proof that Christ does not approve of you.

from “Are You a True Believer of God?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

79. It may be that in all your years of faith in God, you have never cursed anyone nor committed a bad deed, yet in your association with Christ, you cannot speak the truth, act truthfully, or obey the word of Christ; then I say that you are the most devious and sinister in the world. If you are especially cordial and loyal to your relatives, friends, wife (or husband), sons and daughters, and parents, and never take advantage of others, yet you cannot be compatible and at peace with Christ, then even if you send your all in relief to your neighbors or have taken good care of your father, mother, and household, I still say that you are wicked, and cunning, too. Do not think that you are compatible with Christ if you are compatible with man or perform some good deeds. Do you believe that your kindness can purloin the blessing of Heaven? Do you think that good deeds are a substitute for your obedience? None of you can accept dealing and pruning, and all find it difficult to accept the normal humanity of Christ. Yet you always claim obedience to God. Such faith as yours will bring upon a fitting retribution.

from “Those Incompatible With Christ Are Surely Opponents of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

80. Your heart is filled with evil, betrayal, and deceit. So then how much of your love is impure? You believe that you have already given up enough for Me; you believe that your love for Me is already enough, yet why do your words and actions always carry with them rebellion and deceit? You follow Me, yet do not acknowledge My word. Is this considered love? You follow Me, yet then cast Me aside. Is this considered love? You follow Me, yet are mistrustful of Me. Is this considered love? You follow Me, yet cannot accept My existence. Is this considered love? You follow Me, yet do not treat Me as befits who I am and make things difficult for Me at every turn. Is this considered love? You follow Me, yet treat Me as a fool and deceive Me in every matter. Is this considered love? You serve Me, yet do not fear Me. Is this considered love? You oppose Me in all respects and all things. Is this all considered love? You have sacrificed much, this is true, yet you have never practiced what I ask of you. Can this be considered love? Careful reckoning shows that there is not the slightest hint of love for Me within you. After these many years of work and so many words I have supplied, how much have you actually received? Does this not merit a careful look back?

from “Many Are Called, but Few Are Chosen” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

81. Your mouths are filled with words of deceit and filth, of betrayal and haughtiness. Never have you spoken words of sincerity and holiness to Me, nor the words of experiencing My word and obeying Me. What faith is this? Your hearts are filled with desires and wealth; your minds are filled with material things. Every day, you calculate how to gain from Me, assessing how much wealth and how many material things you have gained from Me. Every day, you await ever more blessings to come down upon you so that you may enjoy more and greater pleasurable things.

from “Many Are Called, but Few Are Chosen” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

82. Your deception, your arrogance, your greed, your extravagant desires, your betrayal, your disobedience—which of these could escape My notice? You palter with Me, you fool Me, you insult Me, you deceive Me, you exact Me, you extort Me for sacrifices—how could such maleficence elude My punishment? Your evildoing is proof of your enmity to Me, and is proof of your incompatibility with Me. Each of you believes yourself to be so compatible with Me, but if that is the case, then to whom does such irrefutable evidence apply? You believe yourselves to possess the utmost sincerity and loyalty toward Me. You think that you are so kindhearted, so compassionate, and have devoted so much to Me. You think that you have done enough for Me. Yet have you ever compared these beliefs against your own behavior? I say you are plenty arrogant, plenty greedy, plenty perfunctory; the tricks with which you fool Me are plenty clever, and you have plenty of contemptible intentions and contemptible methods. Your loyalty is too meager, your earnestness is too paltry, and your conscience is even more lacking. There is too much maliciousness in your hearts, and no one is exempt from it, not even Me.

from “You Should Seek the Way of Compatibility With Christ” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

83. You praise yourselves for your little loyalty and want reward for your small sacrifice; you look down upon others when you show a bit obedience, and become contemptuous of God upon performing some petty work. You wish for riches and gifts and compliments for receiving God. Your hearts ache when you give a coin or two; when you give ten, you wish for blessings and to be distinguished from others. A humanity such as yours is really offensive to speak of or hear. What is praiseworthy of your words and actions? Those who perform their duty and those who do not; those who lead and those who follow; those who receive God and those who do not; those who give and those who do not; those who preach and those who receive the word, and so on; all such men praise themselves. Do you not find this laughable? Surely you know that you believe in God, yet you cannot be compatible with God. Surely you know that you are unworthy, yet you remain boastful. Do you not feel that your sense has become such that you no longer have self-control? How can you with such sense be fit for association with God? Now are you not afraid for yourselves? Your disposition has already become such that you cannot be compatible with God. Is your faith not preposterous? Is your faith not absurd?

from “Those Incompatible With Christ Are Surely Opponents of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

84. During My many years of work, man has received much and given up much, yet I still assert that man does not truly believe in Me. For man merely acknowledges on the surface that I am God and does not agree with the truth I speak, much less practice the truth that I ask of him. That is to say, man acknowledges only the existence of God, but not that of the truth; man acknowledges only the existence of God, but not that of life; man only acknowledges God’s name, but not His substance. Owing to his zealousness, man is abhorrent to Me. For man just uses words pleasing to the ear to deceive Me, and none worship Me with a true heart. Your words carry the temptation of the serpent. And your words are haughty to the extreme, simply as if the archangel had expressed them. Moreover, your deeds are worn out; your immoderate desires and covetous intentions are offensive to hear. You have all become moths in My house and objects of My detestation and rejection. For none of you are lovers of the truth, only men who favor blessings, who wish to ascend to heaven, and whom it pleases to see the magnificence of Christ wielding His power on earth.

from “Many Are Called, but Few Are Chosen” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

85. What you admire is not the humility of Christ, but those false shepherds of prominent standing. You do not love the loveliness or wisdom of Christ, but those wantons who associate with the vile world. You laugh at the pain of Christ who has no place to lay His head, but admire those corpses that seize offerings and live in debauchery. You are not willing to suffer alongside Christ, but gladly go into the arms of those reckless antichrists though they supply to you only flesh, only letters, and only control. Even now your heart still turns toward them, toward their reputation, toward their standing in the hearts of all the Satans, and toward their influence and authority. And yet you continue to hold an attitude of resisting and refusing to accept the work of Christ. This is why I say that you do not have the faith of acknowledging Christ.

from “Are You a True Believer of God?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

86. Some people do not rejoice in the truth, much less judgment. Rather, they rejoice in power and riches; such people are deemed to be snobs. They exclusively seek out those sects in the world with influence and those pastors and teachers coming from seminaries. Despite having accepted the way of truth, they remain skeptical and are unable to devote themselves fully. They speak of sacrificing for God, but their eyes are focused on the great pastors and teachers, and Christ is brushed aside. Their hearts are filled with fame, fortune, and glory. They do not believe at all that such a meager man is capable of conquering so many, that one so unremarkable is capable of perfecting people. They do not believe at all that these nobodies among the dust and dunghills are the people chosen by God. They believe that if such people were the objects of God’s salvation, then heaven and earth would be turned upside down and all men would laugh their heads off. They believe that if God chose such nobodies to be perfected, then those great men would become God Himself. Their perspectives are tainted with unbelief; indeed, far from unbelief, they are preposterous beasts. For they only value position, prestige, and power; what they hold in high regard are large groups and sects. They have no regard at all for those led by Christ; they are simply traitors who have turned their backs on Christ, on truth, and on life.

from “Are You a True Believer of God?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

87. Look at the leaders of every denomination and sect. They are all arrogant and self-right, and they interpret the Bible out of context and according to their own imagination. They all rely on gifts and erudition to do their work. If they were incapable of preaching anything, would those people follow them? They do, after all, possess some learning, and can speak a little of doctrine, or know how to win over others and how to use some artifices, through which they have brought people before themselves and have deceived them. Nominally, those people believe in God—but in reality they follow their leaders. If they encounter those who preach the true way, some of them would say, “We have to consult him about our belief in God.” See how they require someone’s consent to believe in God; is that not a problem? What have those leaders become, then? Have they not become Pharisees, false shepherds, antichrists, and stumbling blocks to people’s acceptance of the true way? This kind of people belong to the same kind as Paul.

from “Only the Pursuit of the Truth Is the True Belief in God” in Records of Christ’s Talks

88. If you are very cunning, then you will have a guarded heart and thoughts of suspicion regarding all matters and all men. For this reason, your faith in Me is built upon a foundation of suspicion. Such manner of faith is one I shall never acknowledge. Without true faith, then your love is far from true love. And if you even doubt God and speculate about Him at will, then you are certainly the most cunning of men. You speculate whether God can be like man: unpardonably sinful, of petty character, without fairness and reason, lacking a sense of righteousness, employing measures of malice, treachery, and cunning, as well as being pleased by evil and darkness, and so on. Is not the reason that man has such thoughts because man has not the slightest knowledge of God? Such manner of faith is nothing short of sin! Moreover, there are even some who believe that I am pleased by none other than those who ingratiate and fawn, and that those who know nothing of such things will be unpopular and be unable to keep their place in the house of God. Is this the knowledge you have received over these many years? Is this what you have gained? And your knowledge of Me is far from only such misunderstandings; much more, there is your blasphemy against God’s Spirit and vilification of Heaven. This is why I say that such manner of faith as yours will only cause you to stray further from Me and be in greater opposition against Me.

from “How to Know the God on Earth” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

89. All that exists in your hearts is iniquity, and hence you believe that anyone, no matter who, is cunning and crooked. You even believe that God incarnate would be as a normal man: without a heart of kindness or a benevolent love. Moreover, you believe that a noble character and a merciful, benevolent nature exist only within the God in heaven. And you believe that such a saint does not exist, and that only darkness and evil reign on earth, while God is merely a glorious goal upon which man places hope, and a legendary figure fabricated by man. In your hearts, the God in heaven is very upright, righteous, and great, worthy of worship and reverence, but this God on earth is merely a substitute and instrument of the God in heaven. You believe this God cannot be equivalent to the God in heaven, much less be mentioned in the same breath as Him. When it comes to the greatness and honor of God, they belong to the glory of the God in heaven, yet when it comes to the nature and corruption of man, they are attributed to the God on earth. The God in heaven is forever lofty, while the God on earth is forever insignificant, weak, and incompetent. The God in heaven is not given to emotion, only righteousness, while the God on earth only has selfish motives and is without any fairness or reason. The God in heaven has not the slightest crookedness and is forever faithful, while the God on earth always has a dishonest side. The God in heaven loves man dearly, while the God on earth cares for man inadequately, even neglecting him entirely. This erroneous knowledge has long been kept within your hearts and may also be perpetuated onward in the future.

from “How to Know the God on Earth” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

90. You regard all deeds of Christ from the standpoint of the unrighteous and judge all His work and His identity and substance from the perspective of the wicked. You have made a grave mistake and done that which has never been done by those before you. That is, you only serve the lofty God in heaven with a crown upon his head and never attend to the God you regard as so insignificant as to be unseen. Is this not your sin? Is this not the typical example of your offense against the disposition of God? You very much worship the God in heaven. You very much adore lofty figures and esteem those with great eloquence. You are gladly commanded by the God that gives you handfuls of riches, and greatly pine for the God who can fulfill your every desire. The only one you do not worship is this God who is not lofty; your sole object of hatred is association with this God whom no man can regard highly. The only thing you are unwilling to do is to serve this God who has never given you a single penny, and the only one for whom you do not yearn is this unlovely God. Such kind of God cannot enable you to broaden your horizons, to feel as if you have found a treasure, much less fulfill what you wish. Why, then, do you follow Him? Have you given thought to this question?